You’ve got to give Washington Huskies star basketball recruit Tony Wroten some credit. Kid’s still in high school and he’s already discovered how to most effectively embarrass himself via Twitter, an art that takes most athletes years to perfect.

By now you’ve heard about Mason Kelley’s excellent Seattle Times story that – gasp! – details an academic scandal at Garfield High School in which Wroten initially received credit for a Spanish class that didn’t exist, the result of which was the firing of the school’s athletic director and the placement of Wroten in a three-person remedial Spanish class in order to make up the credit.

But as if the publicity of such a top-to-bottom administrative failure wasn’t embarrassment enough, Wroten followed in the footsteps of several notable athletes before him, attempting to resolve the matter by way of Twitter, which has been helping public figures humiliate themselves since its inception.

Was there an apology for the bad publicity caused by the whole ordeal? If he didn’t do anything wrong, maybe that’s not necessary. So at least an explanation, perhaps?

Nah. Wroten chose to stoke the flames and blame the messenger, instead.

Wroten: “Lol this guy @masonkelley be lying. Lol we r retarded now? Lol yea OK. I guarantee it wouldn’t even b a story if MY name wasn’t in it. Lol Its koo though cause you will NEVER get another interview with me. Never again. Now retweet that. Lol.”

Now, I’m not so sure Wroten reacted any differently than you or I would have at age 18, given a public forum to air our grievances toward a person who just made us look rather silly in a newspaper article (by simply reporting the facts, I should add). And Wroten has since deleted said tweet, following up this morning with some finely crafted missives about how important it is for him to learn Spanish.

And we also shouldn’t rule out the possibility that his Twitter account was hacked by a 14-year-old girl, based on the liberal usage of “lol” throughout his initial tweet, as well as the ever-insensitive use of the term “retarded” as a pejorative.

(Also, if you’re bored enough to actually count the number of characters in that tweet, you’ll see that it exceeds Twitter’s 140-character limit. That’s not an error. Wroten used the site TMI.me to ensure his extensive rebuttal could run in all of its lengthy glory.)

So while there are all kinds of issues at play here about adults enabling the bending of academic rules and fostering a sense of entitlement among impressionable student-athletes, let’s set those aside for now.

Wroten isn’t blameless here. He had to have known he was getting credit for a bogus class. And the UW would do well to take a super-sized magnifying glass to the entire investigation. But at its core, this was a situation enabled and executed by adults, and let’s not forget that Wroten is, indeed, currently enrolled in an actual Spanish class taught by an actual teacher for actual credits. Shady as the alleged circumstances were that landed him in that class, all appears, for now, to be on the up and up.

So as far as the Huskies are concerned, this is a prime opportunity for coach Lorenzo Romar to send an early message to his soon-to-be star point guard.

And it should go something like this:

Stay. The. Hell. Off. Twitter.

No need to preach anything along the lines of “think before you tweet.” No need for lax limitations. Just put a damn moratorium on the thing and be done with it.

It would serve Wroten well, as it would have served well Isaiah Thomas, a frequent user of the social networking site. Thomas typically uses the site to interact (positively) with fans and give updates on his day-to-day activity, though occasionally makes negative remarks toward the media that would probably be better left unsaid. Or at least un-tweeted.

Whining about the media doesn’t hurt our feelings. It just makes the tweeter (if that’s even a word) look weak and easily rattled. And chances are that if your Twitter page is the subject of a news story – or contributes to one, in Wroten’s case – you’re not going to come out of it looking very good. Just ask Rashard Mendenhall or Cappie Pondexter (although those are extreme examples and Wroten hasn’t even approached that level of absurdity).

As Twitter addicts go, I’d place Thomas in the relatively responsible category. Same with Darnell Gant, Abdul Gaddy, C.J. Wilcox and Scott Suggs, all frequent users. And former Huskies Jon Brockman and Spencer Hawes frequently use their accounts to promote and support Seattle sports, which can never be a bad thing.

Point is, though, that while all of the jokes and fan interaction can be perfectly harmless, all it takes is one frustrated hammering of the keyboard in a moment of weakness to make you look like a complete fool.

Ever seen a news story with the headline, “Athlete praised for positive tweet?”

Didn’t think so. Not that journalists or other professionals are immune to social media foot-in-mouth syndrome. I’ve deleted words written in Facebook statuses that upon second glance, I figured would probably be best kept to myself. It happens. We get mad, we turn on the computer, and boom, we’ve transmitted an unfiltered message to anyone who wants to read it. Only difference between Wroten and the average Joe is that Wroten has 4,789 followers and is already a nationally recognized figure.

(That, and the average Joe probably doesn’t “lol” quite as much.)

That’s the lesson Romar needs to make sure Wroten learns here. That he’s in a fishbowl now. That he’s accountable for every word he makes available to the public. And that even though he’s still in high school, he’s a part of UW’s recruiting class, and therefore represents the school whether he’s enrolled yet or not.

When that time comes, it’d be wise to have a team-wide Twitter ban in place.